


The Girl From His Past

by silenceandgrace



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenceandgrace/pseuds/silenceandgrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan meets a girl at the mansion who knew him before he was Wolverine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take Care

**Author's Note:**

> Please be advised, this is a fucked-up little story. Also: I love Rogue, but she doesn't exist in this series. And I know that there was a guy in Origins who had electricity powers, but I came up with this concept before I saw that movie, so he's got nothing to do with Anna or Zoe. Finally, I posted the first two chapters on Fanfiction.net back in 2012, and since then I've changed some details around, so this version is more accurate one.

"Pushing me away so I give her space, dealing with a heart that I didn't break..."

Logan's ears perked up as the song floated into the rec room. He knew it, but he couldn't remember knowing it. He left his spot at the window where he'd been watching a pickup basketball game outside, and followed the voice out of the room.

He strained to figure out if the voice was familiar as well as the song. But his memories were blocked, as they always were; he could only ever access very short flashes or sounds at a time.

The voice was coming from the kitchen. As he got closer, he also picked up the sound of running water. Logan hesitated just outside the doorway, unsure as to what he'd be facing if he entered the room.

He told himself he was being a pussy, and forced himself into the kitchen.

A girl was standing at the sink, washing dishes and singing to herself. She was wearing yellow rubber gloves, and from her size, looked only about thirteen or so. She heard him come in, and stopped singing and turned to look at him.

When she saw him, her scrubbing motion abruptly stopped. Still staring at him, she flicked off the faucet.

When he saw her face, a word automatically came out of his mouth.

A name.

"Anna."

She responded with a frown. He blinked, unsure of where that had come from. He didn't know anyone named Anna. He didn't know his girl's name...so how did he so confidently attach this name to her face?

"Who's asking?" she said, in a sharper tone than he'd expected.

"Zoe, go do your homework," came a voice from behind him.

Logan turned, and what he saw almost gave him vertigo. It was a woman in her late 20s, an older version of the girl he had called Anna. That girl had been the first person he'd ever run into who might've been from his past, and just a few seconds later, another showed up as well.

The woman only met Logan's eyes briefly, but in that short period of time, he saw enough to confirm that this woman did in fact know him. He saw recognition in her eyes, but there was more than that. Layers of emotion - pain, mostly. There was no time to analyze her expression any further, though, because the girl named Zoe spoke up behind him.

"I already did my homework," she said, with a hint of a pout.

"Then go study for your biology test," the woman replied.

"But-"

"Zoe."

Zoe sighed. She took off the gloves and laid them on the counter. As she did so, Logan noticed two thick bracelets on her wrists. As he kept looking, though, he realized they weren't bracelets - they were thick, metallic cuffs with buttons and LED displays on the inner sides. She looked up at Logan as she passed him, then turned her attention to the woman behind him.

"He thought I was you," he heard her whisper. He turned his head to the side slightly so he could see the woman's reaction. She placed her hand on the top of Zoe's head and gave her a slight smile, and then the girl was gone.

Logan turned around fully. The woman drew a breath, as though steeling herself for him.

"Hi," she said, the smile having disappeared. "My name is Anna."

"I know," he answered. "We knew each other, didn't we."

Again, layers of thoughts and emotions became visible in her expression. She folded her arms across her chest.

"Yeah," she responded. "We did."

Logan saw that she wore two cuffs identical to Zoe's. She followed his gaze down, and uncrossed her arms.

"This is actually what I wanted to talk to you about," she said, raising one of her wrists slightly. "It's nothing personal, but I don't want you going near Zoe for the time being. She's my daughter, she - her gift is the same as mine. We can generate and manipulate electricity. Your adamantium endoskeleton, it'll mess with her system. I'll need to work on her controls - that's what these are called," she said, gesturing with her wrist again.

"What about you?" he asked.

She shook her head dismissively. "She's young, and hasn't had as much time as I've had to work on manual control. Besides, I've already been exposed to you - with the metal inside of you. I know what to expect."

Logan had a thousand questions bouncing around rapidly in his brain. But for some reason, he chose to ask, "You knew I was here already?"

"What?"

"You knew I was here," he said. "You weren't surprised when you saw me standing here."

"Oh," said Anna. "The Professor called me into his office a little while ago, because he'd seen images of someone like you in my memories before, and wanted to see if you were the same person."

Logan arched a brow. "That guy doesn't give anyone much privacy, does he?"

"Most of the time, he does. But sometimes things just...I don't know. Spill out," she said, her gaze flickering down for a second. Looking back up at him, she added, "But anyways. Give Zoe some space, and I'm sorry, but I'm going to need space for a few days too."

"What do you mean?"

She gave a short sigh, and looked away from him for a second. "I know that I've had fifteen years to get over...everything that happened, but I'm not entirely there yet. I'm still angry with you, and I wasn't expecting to see you anytime son, and I don't want to lose control and accidentally hurt you." Then, she added, "Or not accidentally. Whatever."

As eager as Logan was to ask her everything she knew about his past, he understood that he couldn't force it. "Okay," he answered. "Wait, what did I do to make you mad at me?

She shook her head. "Not now."

He held up his hands. "Right. Sorry."

Then, her expression turned just a degree softer. "I'm glad you're alright, Logan."

He didn't know how to respond, so he remained silent as she disappeared into the hall. 

One thought hit him hard as soon as she left. It had been fifteen years - so that meant she must've been a teenager when he last saw her. Probably right around Zoe's age. Instantly, he felt creeped out at the fact that he'd found her beautiful.

It was a ridiculous thought, but it occurred to him nonetheless. He couldn't be the girl's father, could he? That would mean that he'd slept with a very young Anna at a time when he himself looked the same age he did today.

The thought made him uneasy. He started for the fridge to look for a beer, but then remembered that this was a school.

God dammit.


	2. Phonebooks Were a Thing

Later that night, Logan was roaming the mansion sleeplessly. When he came to a dorm hall on the second floor, he picked up the sound of a familiar voice.

Anna.

Logan followed the sound of her voice down the dark hallway, to a closed door on the left. He got as close as he could to the door without touching it, straining to hear.

"It was weird," he hear her say. "I mean, I'm still pissed, but when I saw him I felt this huge sense of relief. It's stupid, that I actually worried about him all these years, because he's practically indestructable. But in an irrational sort of way I was just so glad to see he's all right."

Then, there was silence. He realized she was on the phone.

"I mean, I'm sort of indebted to him, you know? For passing on his healing gift to Zoe. God knows it's saved her more than once."

His stomach twisted.

The next time Anna spoke, her voice was muffled, as though she'd lowered her head.

"There's something else. You know how he doesn't age? I am 29 years old and yet he doesn't look a day older even after all this time."

A pause.

Then, she exclaimed, "Are you laughing? Cass, this isn't funny!"

Later, "There were about ten thousand thoughts running through my head when Xavier told me he was here, and one of them was, "Fuck, he is most likely still going to be hot as hell, and I am now at a point where, if we were normal people, it wouldn't be socially unacceptable for me to find him attractive, except for the fact that he was basically my father for sixteen years. And also he's probably as old as fucking time."

...

"Shut up, Cass." A second later - "Wait. Can you hang on a sec?"

Logan straightened up, a second before the door opened and he found himself face-to-face with the girl who'd just called him 'hot as hell'.

"Seriously?" she said, referring to his shameless eavesdropping.

"What?" he responded. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was just taking a walk."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah. This is a really scenic, uh...hallway."

"All right, well you go take your walk, and if I catch you sneaking around again, I'll make you help me grade papers."

"How did you know I was out here?" he asked.

"Oh, God, stop," she said, screwing her face up. "It's too bizarre, you not knowing these things about me. I - basically, I can feel people whenever my controls are lowered, like they are now."

"Huh," he said.

"Jesus, you're different," she muttered, eyeing him. "No offense, but could you go away because being in your presence is seriously freaking me out?"

"Thanks," he said.

"'preciate it," she said, before shutting the door.

It took Logan a few seconds to get started down the hall again. He desperately wanted to talk to her. To figure out who he'd been. But since that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he took off aimlessly, wandering the halls for a few minutes. Then, suddenly an idea struck him. He started for the kitchen.

Once there, he rummaged through the doors, careful not to make too much noise. Finally, he found a phonebook. He skipped to the yellow pages, and flipped to the B's.

Bars and Pubs.

Brilliant.


	3. Precious

The bar was particularly full tonight, Logan noticed from his table tucked into a corner near the bathrooms. He’d spent three of the past five nights here, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy in his new life at what he considered essentially a glorified daycare. 

But things weren’t normal. Number one, he barely took notice of any of the women who were in the bar tonight. He hadn’t been at the mansion more than a week and Jean Gray had seemingly numbed out that side of him, subduing his natural response to attractive women. He took a long sip of his drink, eyeing the crowd dispassionately. 

There was one woman who caught his eye, though. Anna was here tonight. He would’ve left an half an hour ago if he hadn’t caught sight of her. He should’ve left half an hour ago regardless. But it was like he couldn’t draw away. He hadn’t seen her like this before.

At the school, she was a teacher, and a mother. She was usually preoccupied with her students, or with Zoe. There was a soberness to her, one he rarely saw shaken. Of all the other adults, she was the quietest. The odd one out, almost. Logan gathered that she was one of the newest additions to the faculty, and maybe still felt as though she didn’t quite belong.

She was also usually bundled up in sweaters. Tonight, however, that wasn’t the case.

Tonight she was standing alarmingly close to a man Logan hadn’t seen before, one who’d bought her a drink not long ago. She was wearing a tight black sort of tank top thing, and smiling radiantly as they spoke. When she casually rested her arm on his shoulder, Logan took another long drink.

With a sigh, he resigned to leave. He couldn’t sit here anymore. He felt like an RA watching one of his freshman flirt with a boy or something. If he was a man of weaker constitution it would’ve made his stomach turn. 

He wasn’t, however, going to waste the five dollars he’d spent on his drink. As he worked on finishing it up, his attention was diverted by an outburst by the pool tables. Someone had just made an impressive shot, he gathered.

When he turned away from the pool tables, he was surprised to see that Anna had come over to his table. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

It took literally every ounce of his willpower to keep his eyes on her face and not her tits - her top showed them off extremely well. If he didn’t know better, a teacher was the last thing he would’ve guessed she was.

“I know this is a small town, but there are other bars.”

Logan couldn’t tell from her tone whether she was kidding. Her expression wasn’t giving anything away either.

“Kicking me out?” he replied.

After a second, she smiled. “It’s a free country,” she said. “Or so I’m told.” She surprised him even further by taking his drink out of his hand. He watched as she took a sip, almost finishing it off.

She returned it to him with a slight laugh. “That is some weak shit, my friend.” She took a seat across from him, giving a sigh and brushing her hand through her hair.

“Yeah, what do you usually drink? Balkan vodka?”

She smiled again. “Not weak for me. Weak for you.”

This was the first time they’d spoken since they’d first encountered each other that day in the kitchen. She’d been adamantly avoiding him, slipping out of the room if he happened to walk in. So even though he knew they had a past, he hadn’t gotten a chance to get used to hearing her talk as though she knew him.

“Well. I do live at a school now,” he said, teasingly admonishing.

“Mm.” She rested her cheek against her hand. “I’m sorry, you know. That I haven’t been able to really...come around to the idea of talking to you.”

He guessed that she was at least tipsy now. From the way she’d been smiling earlier, and how open she seemed to be with him now.

“We’re talking now,” he pointed out.

“Mm.” she said again. “Is this what you do, then? Lurk at bars?”

“I’m hardly lurking,” he mock protested.

“You’re lurking hardcore,” she corrected lightheartedly.

“Is this what you do?” he countered. “Come out and accuse guys of being lurkers?”

She laughed just slightly. She ran her hands up her arms, as though she’d gotten cold.

“I love the school,” she said. “I just have to get out every now and then.”

He itched to ask her about their past, but he wasn’t about to push it. Instead, he asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Mm...ten years.”

“You like it?”

She nodded. “I grew up in a similar place. Surrounded by people like me, I mean. And I like being close to Zoe.”

“She seems like a great kid,” he commented.

She met him with a slightly furrowed brow.

“I haven’t spoken to her,” he assured her. “But the school’s small. You run into people.”

“Has she approached you?” she asked, not angry, but curious.

“No,” he told her. “Why, you think she would?”

“I told her who you are. I try to be as honest with her as I can because I think she’s safest that way. I think she’s curious about you.”

Who you are. He wasn’t sure if she’d answer him if he asked what that was. Besides, there was another question weighing more on his mind.

He looked down at his drink for a second. “Can I ask you just one thing?”

When he looked back up at her, she appeared to have sobered up significantly just at that question. Then, she nodded. “Yeah.”

“I heard you, that night. I’m sorry I was listening in, but I heard you on the phone. You said I passed down my healing ability to her.”

Anna frowned again. It was a few moments before she got what he was asking.

“Oh!” she said, her eyes gone wide. “Oh, jesus christ. You think you’re her dad?”

Logan didn’t know how to respond. It turned out he didn’t have to, though, because she burst into laughter.

“Oh my god,” she said after the laughing attack subsided. “Never say that. Never think that. Oh, that is so gross!”

“Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

“No, I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I mean I was fifteen when she was born. And I’d known you ever since I was a little kid. Trust me, it’s objectively gross. I mean, you’re a pretty, pretty man, but it’s gross.”

He raised his eyebrows, and gave a laugh of his own. No one had called him pretty before.

She sighed, calming herself down. It was a few moments before she spoke again.

“It’s, um...it’s a long story. But the cliff notes version is that Zoe’s a test tube baby. You’re not her father. But you did splice her DNA with some of yours. The part that allows you to heal.”

Her eyes were on the table, her fingertips lightly tracing the grain of the wood. Before he could ask where Zoe’s father was, she added, “I didn’t get to say thank you for that. I didn’t know what you did until you were gone.”

He said he’d only ask one question. But he couldn’t stop himself. “What do you mean, gone?”

Anna didn’t answer. Silently, she fiddled with one of the dials on the control cuff on her left wrist.

For the first time, Logan could see the underside of her arm clearly. There was a long, straight scar from her elbow to her wrist, and when he looked at her other arm, he saw the same thing.

He knew those slash marks.

“What happened?” he asked, even though he already had a good idea.

She followed his gaze, and saw that he was staring at her scars.

“Nothing,” she said, automatically, tucking her arms underneath the table.

He looked up at her. Before he knew it, he was saying, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

They were both silent then. He studied her face, straining to remember.

“I wish you could remember,” she said, as though reading his mind. “I wish you could remember your family. I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they loved you very much.”

She inhaled. “But I also wish you remembered for selfish reasons. I wish you could look at me and know who I was.”

“So do I,” he responded.

She fiddled again with one of her controls resting in her lap. “Do you ever see it?” she asked softly. “Where we lived. If you close your eyes?”

He’d started to have dreams of a certain place the night after he first met her. A place with no windows, and no color.

“A little. I think. After we first spoke.”

She sighed, and stopped playing with her control. “Don’t try to. It’s better if you didn’t.”

She stood then, wavering just slightly before stabilizing. She surprised him yet again by taking his hand, and leading him away from the table. All he could do was follow silently.

She took him through the dark around the back of the bar, under a security light where they could see each other clearly. She stood in front of him, and before he knew what she was doing, she was undoing the top buttons of his shirt.

It took him a second to find his voice, to try to stop her even though he didn’t want to.

“Anna.”

“Shush,” she said dismissively.

Two more buttons, and she stopped. Gingerly, she peeled away one side of his shirt to reveal half of his bare chest.

Gently, she ran a knuckle down his left pectoral muscle. He had to consciously keep himself from shivering at the ghost-like touch.

“I got you here once,” she said, her gaze focused on his skin. “With a piece of metal. I didn’t mean to go as deep as I did. I was scared because I didn’t know if I’d gotten to your heart, and if I had, if it could heal like the rest of you.”

What could he have done to make her do that to him? Why would he slash her wrists so bad to leave such prominent scars after all these years?

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice almost coming out like a whisper.

She looked up at him, and smiled just slightly. Wordlessly, she buttoned his shirt back up. 

“You get older and you lose people and you become a parent and you realize just how precious life is. Even when it seemingly doesn’t end.”

He snorted. “Did you just call me precious?”

“Yes. Fight me on it.”

There was a part of him that wanted to kiss her. To scoop her up and take her away from the mansion, where she was so often withdrawn and not half the girl she was tonight. But the other part of him knew that that wasn’t really how she saw him. She might be attracted to him, but at the end of the day, they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

“You want to go home?” he asked.

She nodded, brushing her hair away from her eyes again. The two of them walked out of the light, shoulders bumping as they made their way back to the front of the bar.


	4. I Hate it Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shit but it's a beast I need to let out into the wild, so I'm just posting and letting the chips fall where they may. I didn't have a chapter title so I named this for the Hum song that I was listening to as I wrote it. (I think it's about a bad handjob which is random but musically it's a good song?)

Weeks passed following that night at the bar, and Anna didn’t say a word to Logan.

They ran into each other, of course. But every time, she only scowled and went on to ignore him. Really, he probably should’ve known. She’d been drunk that night that they’d spoken, when she was softer, and had even touched him. 

He itched to corner her in a room somewhere and lock the two of them inside, make her talk to him. But then his thoughts strayed to what else he’d want to do if the two of them were alone together, and he had to stop himself.

It was difficult. Which surprised him, because she wasn’t strictly his type. No ass to speak of, although god had blessed her a passable rack. And except for that one night at the bar, she dressed in baggy pants and sweaters or plaid shirts that were half a size too big on her. 

But from the first day he’d seen her, something in him innately identified her as something to be protected. He knew it was the vestiges of his old self that felt this way, that residual emotions were seeping from his subconscious. He knew that somewhere along the line, he had failed her. And now, he only wanted to make it up to her. To take her small frame and cover it with his larger one, to make sure that nothing else ever hurt her the way he had when he’d slashed her arms.

She hated him, sure, but she also loved him. He could sense that much. And it made him wonder what she would let him do. Right before falling asleep, he had little control over where his thoughts led; much like his dreams. In those last few moments of wakefulness, he imagined pinning her between his arms against the wall of her bedroom. She’d fall silent, scowling at him, of course, but not putting up a fight. He’d dip his head slightly to kiss her, and he wasn’t naive enough to think she’d return the kiss right away, but rather she’d melt against him slowly. She was practically all bones but she’d feel soft underneath his hands as he grasped her hips and pulled her to him. Gangly arms would come up around his neck, and she’d sigh against his ear. 

He usually fell asleep before his imagination got to the best parts. And if he was a man who felt shame, he’d redden when he saw her the next day down the hall. But his curiosity only grew stronger, along with his unnameable desire to make her his. Need came closer to describing it than lust, but what the difference was, he wasn’t sure.


End file.
